A while back Kate Spade had “Eat Cake for Breakfast” emblazoned on tees, dishcloths, mugs and other products, and while I generally agree with this philosophy, eating chocolate for breakfast seems like an even better idea. 🙂
I might do it today because my folks brought back this delicious-looking European chocolate! They just got back from a trip to Germany and Hungary (they’re both retired and love to travel), and when they asked me if I wanted any souvenirs, the first thing that came outta my mouth was “chocolate!”
I don’t know what any of these things say, but I’m thinking that these wafers are gonna be delicious with my coffee!
It’s going to break my heart to mess up this set…
The little chocolates are individually wrapped and have different pretty pictures. Let’s see how long I can hold out, LOL! I do have to say that the presentation makes it hard to dig into these…
My parents also got me the fringed floral wine- and peach-colored scarf in the background. It reminds me of a beautiful older woman I used to see walking around the Outer Sunset in SF when I lived there.
There’s a large Eastern European community out there, and I’d always see this woman walking up and down Geary Street wearing a scarf wrapped around her head and shoulders that looked just like this one. She was so cute.
On that note, while I dig into these chocolates (but maybe not the picture ones), here are some interesting articles I came across this week. There are some good ones!
- This woman survived a car accident…and apparently so did her Kat Von D liquid liner. She took a selfie wearing a neck brace in what appears to be a hospital bed after the accident. All of her makeup appears to be smudged off from crying, but her liquid liner? — flawless and seemingly untouched.
- Ever wonder why certain hotels and stores smell so distinct? The twin sisters behind 12.29, a company that makes personalized scents for big retailers and brands like Nike, Cadillac, Valentino and Harrods, create scents to get consumers in the mood to buy, buy, buy.
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I learned some new things in this step-by-step guide on how to sweat-proof your makeup for summer when you have oily skin. Now I know the difference between the various “film-formers” and which ones work best in different situations. There’s a bit of super cool science up in the mix! — and if I commit anything in this article to long-term memory, I hope it’s this: get thee some fixing spray (not settings spray), ASAP.
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I used to be a big John Mayer fan back in the day. I even got to see him perform at a tiny club in SF before his career took off, and I stood *this close* to where he was on stage, but I haven’t really listened to his stuff in years (frankly, because in several of the interviews of him I’ve seen over the years…he didn’t always sound like the nicest person).
I’m irked a little less by him after seeing this Chanel smoky eye tutorial (WHAT?), which he did on himself, and it’s pretty freakin’ funny. He’s actually not half bad at makeup! And I gotta give the guy kudos for courage and for choosing the good stuff.
I actually have and love the palette he’s using in the video.
- I thought this piece on the changing social codes and laws in Saudi Arabia and how they’ve impacted the way women purchase makeup there was fascinating. Before 2012, Saudi women weren’t allowed to work at makeup counters, so women who wanted to purchase something like a foundation or lipstick were only about to be assisted by a male sales associate, but that man wasn’t allowed to see the woman’s face or touch her.
- I thoroughly enjoyed this story on Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, OPI’s co-founder and brand ambassador. She’s in charge of naming all of OPI’s nail polishes, and in 1989, she made the first 30 OPI nail polish shades, and has since named every single OPI nail lacquer color in the brand’s collection so far. It takes her about six months to name an entire collection.
- This one’s sad. 🙁 Many elderly Japanese women are committing petty crimes in the hopes of being sent to prison, because they have nowhere else to go.
Seattle has a mermaid community (no, really!). Here’s what it’s like to hang out with them.
One of my favorite old-school slow jams, “Always and Forever” by Heatwave, is epic in this live performance.
Just a really cute baby elephant having a good ol’ time chasing birds
I want to make this strawberry tres leches cake!
Have a great rest of your weekend, ‘k? 🙂
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Karen! Let me know if you want any chocolates from Germany. I can send them to you 🙂 What are friends for if not for sharing the calories.
You will love the “Mozart balls” that I saw in your picture!! Very popular in Germany!! Enjoy your treats!
I love reading articles about how Suzi names the OPI polishes. I really want her job if she ever retires! I think I could totally nail it. Hahaha
Did your parents bring anything back for the tiny female? My mom used to travel a lot for work and she would always bring Michael back a tee-shirt from wherever she’d gone.
Oh man, the Mozart rolls/balls and the chocolate wafers look yummy! I’m not sure they would have lasted long enough in my house to take a photo of them. I would so carefully open and save the photo wrappers on that boxed set. I would be tempted to mount them and put them in a frame.
Hope you have a great weekend. Go WARRIORS!
Such good candy! Whenever visiting family in Austria, we always make sure to bring a ton back, so I recognized most of the stuff in your picture right away, ha ha. However, there’s a lot more available in European grocery stores here now than there used to be. (I saw Haribo candy in Walgreens that wasn’t just their gummy bears, and was pretty surprised by how mainstream it’s starting to become!)
However, I found out that I’ll be living in Vienna for about a year, so I’m wondering how long it’ll take before I stop being excited since everything will be so easily accessible. That should be interesting.
That John Mayer tutorial! I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud. My kids are looking at me like I’m crazy. He so didn’t nail it LOL but the willingness to just go for it… why not?
Karen, did you notice that the nurse who had gotten into that car accident but not only survived, also had still-immaculate eyeliner, was working at Queen’s Medical Center (my employer) at the time? What a small world!
I LOVE those Mozart Kugeln chocolates – my all-time fave! I first had them when I was 13 and my Nana brought them back from Austria…
How is it that seemingly every other country on the planet has ridiculously delicious wafer cookies, and all we can seem to come up with in America are those artificially flavored and colored (especially the flamingo pink strawberry ones!) stale wastes of calories, and KitKats? Manner wafers are delicious, and I have yet to meet a flavor I didn’t like. Loacker wafers too – if you ever see their hazelnut Gardena wafers, BUY THEM. So nommable!
I remember my sis getting hooked on Mozartkugel (and rampion salads with pumpkin seed oil) when she went to Austria in high school.
Hmm… must scrounge for chocolate now…
My mother’s family in Germany and friend in Switzerland always sent packages of sweets during the holidays. The shipping is so expensive that she asked them not to do it anymore but, her friend still sends the boys chocolates for their b’day and xmas. They are individually wrapped with pictures as well. One of the boys probably has 100 empty wrappers stashed away. 🙂
I think Suzi is unmatched in terms of naming polishes! That’s terribly sad about the elderly Japanese women. It’s a real problem everywhere. The downside of living longer is not having the resources or support for adequate care. It’s heartbreaking. 🙁
THose chocolate wafers are a major guilt-free pleasure of mine! See what I did there? ? Lol